Wednesday, 3 May 2017

Frostgrave: it's Elementary my dear Watson

Having cooked up one warband for Frostgrave without breaking a sweat, I have decided to have a go at another. I envisage at some point that we can organise a multi-player game, perhaps with four, even five groups on a single table. This could be quite interesting. Who knows, perhaps even a campaign might be in the offing?

My second warband is that of the Elementalist, Gost Woodlight. Having created one warband relatively easily, I have decided to be a little more experimental. Key to the Frostgrave warband is your wizard and in the early stages, his selection of spells. I must confess that I have not read through the very extensive list of spells in the core rules, but in the interests of learning the game, and keeping things interesting, I'm going to to seek not to duplicate the spells chosen for Ragner MacDervish.

Gost Woodlight - Elementalist

Gost is an Elementalist, which in Frostgrave terms, means, "the most outwardly powerful type of wizard." Excellent. Gost gets to pick three Elemental spells, one each from his Aligned schools (Summoner, Enchanter, Chronomancer) and two from the neutral schools (Thaumaturge, Soothsayer, Sigilist, Witch and Necromancer). It is at this point that I realise I've given Ragner too many spells, with FIVE from his neutral schools, when he should have only had TWO. Hence, I decide to revise Ragner's neutral spells to Furious Quill and Imp.

Getting back to Gost, then, we decide to go with the following:

Call Storm (Elemental)

Elemental Bolt (Elemental)

Wall (Elemental) - was one of Ragner's

Raise Zombie (Necromancy) - was one of Ragner's

Plane Walk (Summoner)

Grenade (Enchanter)

Petrify (Chronomancer)

Will Power (Soothsayer)

As you will see with my picks for the rest of the warband, this group of adventurers is going to be a little light on ranged attacks. Thus, several of Gost's spells have a ranged component, allowing him to really range across the field of battle.

Gost has a staff already, and eschews a dagger. He hires an apprentice, this time a halfling called Bagbo Biggins, a former purveyor of pricey pickles now fallen on hard times, and resolved to start a new career as an apprenticee Elementalist, as out of luck hobbits do. Bagbo carries a staff.

Los soldados

So here is my thinking on Woodlight's retinue of scoundrels. I'm going to keep this group small, but dangerous. It will also incentivise me to paint up a couple of Bretonnian men at arms. Gost hires the following:

Sir Gristle of Weevilhaven - a Knight, he carries a sword and shield, and is clad in plate mail armour. He is clean cut and a hit with the ladies. Cost - 100gps (ouch!)

Masket - a man at arms, and formerly Sir Gristle's butler, he is equipped with shield, spear and leather armour. Cost - 80gps.

Bozrik - another man at arms, he is Masket's cousin and was Sir Gristle's stable boy at one stage. He is armed and equipped like Masket. Cost - 80gps.

Bindlebough - a hobbit thief, a bit of a good for nothing, he has a dagger to defend himself with and seems to really be there to make up the numbers. Gost does not expect him to survive for long in Frostgrave. Cost - 20gps.

So there you go. In conclusion, it is still possible to build a respectable warband with seven members for 500gps. Bindlebough and Gnar are really only there to make up the numbers, as they are cheap hirelings, badly armed, and likely to die horribly.

Next time - we take a look at what's cooking in the cauldron of the Witch, Jessica, the Mad Hag of Hangmorton...